Rough Draft in Leicester

Here (below) is information from the organisers of "Rough Draft," a bi-monthly event for writers held in Leicester. MA Creative Writing student Anna Walsh says of the event: "I enjoy trying out my new writing at Rough Draft. It's such a supportive setting for connecting with other Creatives and getting feedback on developing ideas."

We love new stuff. We can’t get enough of it. From gut-wrenching theatre to side-splitting comedy, melodic music to punchy poetry, and all those arty bits in between, we love seeing all the new and exciting things that fall out of those creative brains. But more often than not, the first stumbling block when making something new is getting it seen, finding out if it works, and finding people to help you make it.

Enter Rough Draft. Put together by a handful of Leicester creatives, Rough Draft is a platform for artists to do just that.

Once every two months we hold our scratch nights, and programme three artists who each get fifteen minutes to share their work, be that script in hand or something more polished. We then chat with the audience, ask questions, get answers (or we have paper forms too).

Rough Draft is free to attend and open to all. If you would like to be involved, come along to one of the nights and chat to our team, or pop us an email at roughdraft.le@gmail.com

We'll be changing things up in 2025 by hosting our nights every other month! We'll be kicking off in January with our Leicester Comedy Festival Special and then we'll be back with you in March - which is already fully booked by the way. 

If you're working on anything new and would like constructive feedback from a supportive audience of peers, we next have availability at our May night - So get in touch to book your spot! Our upcoming nights are January 28th, March 25th, May 27th 2025. 

Find out more on our Facebook page here. 

John Gallas, "Aotearoa/Angleland: 30+30 Tankas"

 

John Gallas was born in New Zealand in 1950.  He came to England in the 1970s to study Old Icelandic at Oxford and has since lived and worked in York, Liverpool, Upholland, Little Ness, Rothwell, Bursa, Leicester, Diyarbakir, Coalville and Markfield, as a bottlewasher, archaeologist and teacher. He is the editor of two books of translations – 52 Euros and The Song Atlas – and eleven collections of his own poetry, all published by Carcanet.  He is a Fellow of the English Association and was 2016 Orkney St Magnus Festival poet.

About Aotearoa/Angleland: 30+30 Tankas, by John Gallas

A life, a heart, a soul – and a book – divided.  Happily divided.  In this pamphlet, John Gallas wanders the corners of his two homelands: Aotearoa (the Maori name for New Zealand) and England. The heart doesn’t bleed, the soul doesn’t yearn to be one, and Life can always get on a plane. As Misuzu Bonchō wrote, when she moved to Dodge City:

          A thing with two roots
          Will grow to embrace the earth
          With both arms.  Read on …

From Aotearoa/Angleland: 30+30 Tankas

Hillgate

From here the hedgerows

roll down to Bree across the

careful corduroy

of two farms. In each a tree,

enisled, tears its windy hair.

Date lines

Everything comes first

to the good folk of Tonga,

from where it proceeds

west in a Mexican Wave

to the world’s less happy lands.

Invitation to Public Reading and Q&A at the University of Leicester

John Gallas will read from and answer questions about his new pamphlet at 4pm on Thursday 9 December 2021 in Belvoir City Lounge, 2nd floor, Charles Wilson Building, University of Leicester. THE EVENT IS FREE AND ALL ARE WELCOME!

Annual Creative Writing Lecture: Blake Morrison

You are cordially invited to this year's Annual Creative Writing Lecture, which will be given by Blake Morrison on Monday 18th March 2019 at 6.30pm, in Lecture Theatre 1, George Davies Centre, at the University of Leicester. The event is free and open to all - students, staff and public alike. Below is a description of the lecture.

About the Lecture: Life Writing and the Writing Life

Drawing on his experience in working in several different genres, Blake Morrison considers some of the ethical and formal challenges authors face in doing justice to the story they want to tell. The talk - aimed at creative writers, literature students and general readers - will include short extracts from poetry, fiction and memoir while addressing a number of key questions: What are the drawbacks of writing about family and ‘real’ people? How likeable does a narrator have to be? How strictly should a memoir writer adhere to the truth? Is remembering the same as inventing? When is ‘confessionalism’ acceptable rather than prurient and exploitative? What risks are there, and what advantages, in using regional dialect rather than standard English? 

About Blake Morrison
Blake Morrison was born in Skipton, Yorkshire, and has written fiction, poetry, journalism, literary criticism and libretti, as well as adapting plays for the stage. Among his best-known works are his two memoirs, And When Did You Last See Your Father? (1993) and Things My Mother Never Told Me (2002). He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a former Chair of the Poetry Book Society and Vice-Chair of PEN, and has been Professor of Creative and Life Writing at Goldsmiths University since 2003. His latest book is a novel with poems, The Executor (2018). http://www.blakemorrison.net/